Chile’s president Sebastian Pinera signed an anti-discrimination bill into law on Thursday. Pinera urged lawmakers to speed its approval after after the Neo-Nazi killing of a gay man, Daniel Zamudio, in March.
Reuters reports:
Chile on Thursday became one of the last Latin American nations to pass an anti-discrimination law, after a brutal beating that led to a young gay man’s death put pressure on conservative president Sebastian Pinera’s government to act.
The hate-crime bill, which was originally introduced by ex-president Ricardo Lagos, was signed into law by Pinera after being tied up in Congress for seven years.
Chile, one of Latin America’s richest countries, remains conservative and heavily influenced by the Catholic Church, which considers homosexual acts sinful.
In March, 24-year-old Daniel Zamudio was attacked in a Santiago park and died 20 days later, bed-ridden, in a public hospital. A group of alleged neo-Nazis reportedly beat him for an hour, burned him with cigarettes and carved swastikas into his skin.
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